Italian Renaissance

I've always maintained a certain ignorance around Italian wine. It's never interested me to the same degree as the Rhone does, or any other region that produce well-crafted and gutsy wines. Even after living in Northern Italy, and patronizing a number of very charming enoteche, and discovering a number of pleasing wines, I've returned to France again and again to find my favorite reds. Trying to broaden my palate, and reignite my now mostly dormant Italian skills, I've spent the last few days drinking and thinking about Italian reds. Last night, it was Chianti Classico and Nero d"Avola, and tonight I cracked a bottle of Quattro Mani Montepulciano d'Abruzzo. This wine is the first in a series of four affordable Italian wines produced in four distinctive regions by Paolo Domeneghetti. The winemaker for this particular montepulciano is Attilio Pagli. A 2006 vintage, the nose was all mineral and vegetable at first, but the palate produced sour cherry, not-fully-ripened strawberries, cranberry and roses in addition to wet stone and green peppers. Light in body and tannin, even at 13% alchohol, it has an agreeable fruit-richness, without being overly expressive. While one wine-buyer suggested pairing it with red meat, its combination of rich fruit and subtlety would seem ideal with a pork and apple preparation. It has none of the rusticity I associate with Abruzzo wines, and indeed southern Italian wines in general, but rather a balanced palate, and a long and satisfying finish its purple-red color invited me to imagine when I first poured it.

Adelsheim Pinot Gris 2006

After a day of drinking light-bodied crisp whites, it's been nice to enjoy a post-dinner glass of Adelsheim's 2006 Pinot Gris. Produced in the idyllic conditions of south facing vinyards sheltered by mountains, this Pinot Gris makes one think of everything white: white peaches, coconut and honeysuckle. The mouthfeel is lush and creamy with a current of acidity that put me in mind of the delicious lemon panna cotta I had for dessert tonight at the wonderful Anteprima. We had Gavi di Gavi with dinner, and while it had nice acidity, it lacked heft, and the Adelsheim has the body I was hoping for in the Gavi, plus the white fruits. I picked up a bottle of Murphy's Law Red Blend from Owen Roe today as well, which I'm looking forwartd to cracking. I'm curious about the cepage, which is left deliberately vague on the bottle, but perhaps I'll leave it a "whodunit", and research the grapes after I draw my own preliminary conclusions.

Into the Loire

It seems appropriate, given the title of my new blog, that I begin my wine musings with the purchase of a couple of Loire reds. The Loire Valley's whites have long delighted me, but her reds have flown below my personal radar. To this end, I went into Andersonville today and bought two Cab Francs from Touraine, one from Chinon, and one from St-Nicholas-de-Bourgeuil. I love Cabernet Franc. The first nice bottle of wine I bought after a long period of poverty in Hyde Park four years ago, was a simple Cabernet Franc from Jed Steele's Shooting Star line, and it's soft supple spiciness was a delight after months of cheap Chilean reds at University of Chicago parties and four-dollar-beaujolais from the supermarket, both of which were consumed only with an eye towards intoxication. That was the same year I'd get to try the '59 Margaux at work, but no bottle of wine from that period stands out like the Steele, which was unpretentious, inexpensive and not the most powerful example of even that genre of New World Cab Franc, but nonetheless a real wine: the product of countless small, meaningful decisions in the vineyard and deliberate winemaking. Drinking it made me feel like I was reconnecting with wine as an aesthetic pleasure, experienced both intellectually and sensually. I remember great wines I've drunk like great novels I've read, and each experience of even the same bottle from the same year is different, just as re-reading James Baldwin's "Another Country" at thirty-one has been a radically different experience than it was at twenty-one. One brings one's self to wine as one brings oneself to text--the drinking, like the reading, is as integral to the aesthetic experience as the object of scrutiny--in this case, wine.